Tag: political

Trump’s “open source” thoughts are unprecedented in any modern politician. Trump, by breaking from the “offend no one” style of political discourse, still appeals to those Americans who share beliefs with him that are largely overlooked by the incumbent political class that the president is dismantling. His takeover of the Republican Party was a hostile one that paid lip service to most of the party’s ideological dogma. What Trump is about is remaking the American body politic. Trump-speak is a key component of that overhaul, because it allows for the open discussion of the many problems America and the world is facing but are usually only spoken about in whispers behind closed doors.

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Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests. It grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration. The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict. Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred. There is no such thing as harmless disinformation. Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects. We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits: whether they provoke quarrels, foment division, encourage resignation; or, on the other hand, they promote informed and mature reflection leading to constructive dialogue and fruitful results. ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.

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The chief goal of Fox & Friends is asserting one’s own status by belittling others. Doocy is an expert at keeping things simultaneously light and nasty. Earhardt is the show’s resident softball interviewer. Kilmeade loves mispronouncing certain words in order to mock those who use them in earnest. Their signature tune is reactionary resentment. There are workout segments and cooking segments and music segments, interspersed randomly with deranged political commentary and militaristic iconography. [It] pairs its banalities with a pettiness of spirit. In lockstep with Trump’s reactionary agenda, it yearns for the past while destabilizing the present and future. It is a witch’s mirror, showing you only those things that you hate most in other people, preventing any meaningful self-reflection.

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In 1973, the Trudeau government introduced the Adjustment of Status Program. Under this program, persons who had lived in Canada continuously since Nov. 30, 1972, had 60 days in which to apply for permanent residence. The amnesty, supported by all the major political parties, benefited mostly American draft dodgers, and 39,000 people obtained landed immigrant status under it.

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Rather than fully aligning our movements with preexisting political categories, there is strength in poaching from across the left-right political spectrum. We must position our movements as protest parties — anti-party parties — whose ascension will be the death of established parties.

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“Democrats need to become more religiously literate and faith-friendly. We religious progressives often feel ignored and abandoned by a Democratic Party that seems indifferent to our religious traditions. As an evangelical advocate for social justice, I have fought right-wing religious fundamentalism my whole life. But the secular fundamentalism of the left is not much better — and it certainly does not help garner votes at election time. The utmost respect for ‘the other’ is required now, especially with a strong commitment to defend each other’s faith and to protect others’ lives that are now under attack in the United States — partly inspired by the rhetoric of President Trump.” — Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis is a Christian writer and political activist. He is best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine and as the founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian community of the same name.

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“There has arisen in the United States a growing menace to political order and justice that seeks to reignite social animosities, reverse improvements in race relations, divide our people, and foment hatred, classism, and ethnic cleansing.” — pastor Dwight McKissic of Texas

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“The far right of the evangelical movement in the United States has a highly organized campaign to impose biblical law on every aspect of American society. As the church becomes more aggressive and militant in its political cause, this may precipitate a seizing of religious freedom. Jesus had very little to say about the political power of His day. “Legislating morality” was not a platform for Jesus or the apostles in their ministry in the good news of Christ.” — Paul Vieira

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“It should be startling and infuriating that Trump is able to order a new attack on the Syrian Government without any democratic debate, let alone Congressional approval. Those who instantly fall in line behind Trump as he bombs people are ensuring that he will keep doing it. The one constant of American political life is that the U.S. loves war. Martin Luther King’s 1967 denunciation of the U.S. as ‘the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today’ is more accurate than ever.” — Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, best known for his role in a series of reports published by The Guardian.

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“[Franklin] Graham has advocated the use of nuclear weapons against America’s adversaries after 9/11, seemingly countering the Sermon on the Mount’s message of “love your enemies.” In light of this position in particular, Christian leaders in Okinawa were divided over whether to receive him. Hiroshima and Tokyo canceled their plans to host Graham as an evangelist because of his partisan political statements.” — Ken Shigematsu

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“The current political climate reveals longstanding national sins of racism, misogyny, nativism, and great economic disparity. Regardless of where Christians stand politically, the gospel demands we recognize vulnerable populations among us.” — Christian faculty members from a variety of academic institutions

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“It’s one of the dirty little secrets of American politics that there has been a religious left all along and it just hasn’t done a good job of organizing. It has taken a crisis, or perceived crisis, like Trump’s election to cause folks on the religious left to really own their religion in the public square.” — J. Patrick Hornbeck II

J. Patrick Hornbeck II is chairman of the theology department at Fordham University, a Jesuit school in New York.

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“Political discussion has reached a new, divisive low. Relatives are blocking and unfriending each other on Facebook over political disagreements, we get all of our information from sources which confirm and cater to our own biases, and we’ve doubled down on political tribalism like never before.” — Thomas Merolli

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“The pro-Trump evangelicals suffer from a spiritual crisis, not a political one. Moore has challenged the foundations of conservative evangelical political engagement because they desperately needed to be shaken. For 35 years, the old-guard religious right has uncritically coddled, defended and promoted the Republican Party.” — Jacob Lupfer

Jacob Lupfer is a frequent commentator on religion in American politics and culture. Lupfer has worked in parish ministry and has taught at the middle school, high school, community college, and university levels. Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jlupf

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“As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between “us” and “them.” Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.” — Peter Beinart

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“No movement or political revolution will ever be built within the confines of the Democratic Party. And the repeated failure of the American left to grasp the duplicitous game being played by the political elites has effectively neutered it as a political force. The Democrats, like the Republicans, have no interest in genuine reform. They are wedded to corporate power.” — Chris Hedges

Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, professor at Princeton University, author of several New York Times best-sellers, and Presbyterian minister. See: Bernie Sanders’ Phantom Movement

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The Resistance is a curated reblog (and occasional blog). We aggregate salient quotes and excerpts of articles on politics, Christianity, religion, tribalism, culture, music activists, current events, new movements, hopeful stories, and emerging progressive voices that we discover and feel compelled to share.

As Christians and people of faith we can no longer be silent. Opposing voices have been the loudest voices defining who we are for too long. We are highly critical. — We are critical because we love. We are the local, neighborhood, grassroots revolution.

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